Studi di Pittura già dissegnati da Giambatista Piazzetta ed ora con l'intaglio di Marco Pitteri pubblicati a spese di Giambatista Albrizzi sotto gil auspice de sua Eccellenza Carlo Conte, e Signore Firmian

Oblong folio.  310 x 430 mm., [12 ¼ x 17 inches].  Engraved frontispiece portrait of Piazzetta as an older man flanked by allegorical images of painting and sculpture;  title-page printed in red and black ink with an allegorical engraving illustrating Venice and the Arts;  3 page dedication with coat-of-arm of Count Carlo Firmian with an engraved initial letter and a tail-piece of an angel blowing a trumpet;  1 page dated notice by Albrizzi describing the content of the book and the artists who made the designs and engravings;  2 page "Prefazione";  4 page Memorie intorno alla Vita di Giambattista Piazzetta by Albrizzi with an engraved initial letter and a second state of an engraved self-portrait of Piazzetta originally made in 1738;  23 pages of text with instructions to the student about the engravings to follow; and 48 engraved plates of designs of the human body by Pitteri after designs by Piazzetta.  With an additional 4 engraved plates of pastoral scenes with men and women in local costumes 3 of which are unsigned but designed by Piazzetta and one signed by Piazzetta and the engraver G[iuliano]. Giampiccolo.

This copy is sympathetically bound in late 19th century mottled calf spine and tips over original decorative paper boards.  Frontispiece previous folded with paper repair to the folds, the leaf with some discoloration to the margins.  With the book plate of the founder and publisher of the La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari and the bookseller Fiametta Soave.

First edition, 2nd state of this collection of studies of the human body by the master painter and illustrator Giambattista Piazzetta.  Created as a manual of the art of drawing, this rare album of images became a guide for Italian and continental painters well into the first decade of the 19th century.  Composed of 48 images, 24 of which are in chiaroscuro, Piazzetta's designs and texts was the ultimate representation of the Venetian style of art and are responsible for its dissemination throughout Europe.  Beautifully rendered engravings by Marco Pitteri and Francesco Bartolozzi, this is a classic of 18th century Venetian book illustration. 

In a loose translation in G. Morazzoni's book, Il Libro Illustrato Veneziano del Settecento,  he writes of Piazzetta's Studi di Pittori in the following way: 

"If Piazzetta's art shines in the various frontispieces for Albrizzi's printed collection, it excels in its explanations of design and decoration in the famous album of the Study of Painting.   Only Piazzetta was able to interpret the general conventions of the way of pictorially presenting the human figure and it is easy to understand how for forty years the luminous book served as a useful model for students of the Venetian Academy . . ." 

A very good copy of an important book in the history of western art.

Leopoldo Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte,  345, citing the importance of the Memorie by Albrizzi. G. Morazzoni, Il Libro Illustrato Veneziano del Settecento, pp. 183-84. 129.  See also,  George Know, Piazzetta, Washington; National Gallery of Art, 1983, pp. 210-11, 226.

For a detailed description of the various editions and states of the work see: Federico Montecuccoli degli Erri, Ánalisi di un Libro Veneziano del '700:  Gli Studi di Pittura di Giambattista Piazzetta, con il catalogo ragionato delle edizioni e delle incisioni"; in Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte.  Firenze": Olschki, 1992, pp. 145.  (1144)